Prison Architect

**Hooahguy** · 01-03-2015, 06:19

I didnt see a thread on this and I felt it deserved its own post.

Ive been really engrossed in this game. I bought it a couple days ago during the Steam sale and I already have over 20 hours in the game, which is saying something because to rack up that many hours in only 2 days is quite something for me.

Anyways, as the name suggests, the goal is to build your own prison and manage it. And for a game still in alpha, its actually very well done. The artwork/style of the game is really unique to me, and the sound design is just great. Ive never been to prison (thankfully) but going off of movies and TV, the game sounds just like I would imagine prison to be. Its one of those games which is easy to learn but very hard to master. I tried my hand at a small prison which went well and I decided to go big, hosting 200+ prisoners and soon found myself waaaaay over my head. Apparently putting maximum security prisoners with the rest of the prison population is a really bad idea. Riots tend to happen. Now I gotta start over and separate the two populations.

As for the stability, they have ironed out most of the glaring bugs so far, though some little ones persist. Not too bad so far though, the game is more than enjoyable even with those bugs.

Highly recommended!

**Fragony** · 01-05-2015, 15:25

Can I make a really inapropiate joke

**Hooahguy** · 01-05-2015, 17:34

Probably shouldnt...

Anyways, Im over 40 hours in and the game just sucks you in so much. Im working on this super prison with capacity for almost 500 prisoners, with minimum security, medium sec, maximum sec, and supermax areas. So far, no riots which is nice but I only have about 50 prisoners as I only get prisoner transports of anywhere between 8-20 prisoners at a time so it will be a while before I have to deal with a huge number of inmates. One downside of the game is that it can go kinda slowly. Time ticks by and waiting 24 hours for new prisoners can feel like ages, even at the 3x speed considering that 3x isnt that much faster than 1x, which is a real problem. You also have problems with how fast inmates and other staff move because if it takes prisoners two hours to get from their cell to the canteen area, that causes real problems especially since you dont want to just unlock every jail door just for lunch. Kinda annoying as I have to give my supermax prisoners 3 hours for lunch because otherwise they would starve.

AI can be kinda stupid sometimes but overall its decent. The huge maps can run kinda sluggishly which isnt so great but its not so bad that its game breaking. A minor annoyance at best.

**Montmorency** · 01-05-2015, 20:02

If prisoners riot, can a subset of the prisoners ever counter-riot, or just sit it out?

**Hooahguy** · 01-05-2015, 20:56

Some do sit it out but Ive never seen a counter-riot. I also dont look too closely, as Im too busy frantically bringing more guards to the scene before it spirals out of control.